


and you kissed me just because you knew it'd shut me up

by primrosee



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Implied Child Abuse, Love, M/M, That's it, it's a romcom, pure fucking fluff, romcom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 12:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10360092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primrosee/pseuds/primrosee
Summary: A so-called "badass" falls in love with a nerd.What else is new about that?





	

**Author's Note:**

> incredible. this is the first time in about two years i've written johndave that wasn't even relatively sad
> 
> enjoy this H A P P Y S H I T
> 
> (title from "say it, just say it" by the mowgli's bc they're a m a z i n and also i just watched blended for the millionth time because fuck u that movie is the shit)

You meet him in seventh grade, the height of your jackass phase.

You’re a cigarette-smoking, leather-jacket-wearing, textbook royal douchebag. Instead of going to class and taking notes and test and all of that ridiculous shit, you hang out behind the school and smoke an entire pack of cigarettes with Karkat Vantas. He shoots the shit with you, mainly tells you about this goody-two-shoes chick in his art class who wears a hat with cat ears and has a literal giant for a best friend. “Dude, I’m telling you,” he says. “The guy’s like, seven feet tall. He could beat both of our asses at the same time.”

And you laugh, per usual, almost a reflex by that point because despite all of his stupid anger Karkat is a pretty funny guy when he wants to be. Say, “Well, shit. If it’s true love, you gotta go for it, kid. This could be your wife we’re talking about. You could have all kinds of angry, artistic babies together and I could be Uncle Dave. Holy fuck.”

Karkat rolls his eyes at you, crushes his third cigarette of the day underneath his foot and promises you that you will never, in a million years, be referred to as “Uncle Dave” by his future children. You punch him in the arm and finish of your fifth cigarette of the day, six if you count the one you smoked on the way to school. You’re killing your lungs, for sure, but your Bro doesn’t seem to have much to say about it (aside from punching you in the face, which isn’t really constructive feedback) so you give zero shits.

You’re lighting Karkat’s cigarette when you hear the maintenance door squeak open, and the both of you swear and put out two perfectly good cigarettes, trying to think of a good bullshit excuse to feed to whatever lunch lady or teacher is raining on your lung-killing parade. You glance around the dumpster you’re sitting beside and find that it is not, in fact, a teacher or lunch lady or anyone else who could give you detention. It’s Cronus Ampora and his gang. You don’t want to fuck with them, so you just become another statistic watching a kid get bullied who they berate in those shitty anti-bullying ads. They throw the kid into the garbage can and walk back inside, laughing their asses off.

Karkat is up off of the ground before you are, pushing the dumpster open with both hands. For all of his talk, he’s a good guy. The thrown-in-a-dumpster kid pops his head out, and you literally feel the homosexuality grow because damn is he hot. He has black hair and these blue eyes that are literally nicer than any blue eyes you have ever seen, and for a boy he’s pretty fucking curvy. Like, you’re pretty sure your last girlfriend was skinnier than him. Christ. And Karkat can tell you’re checking the kid out, and despite his crush on cat artist, he smiles and offers the kid a hand.

“Oh!” He says, lips parting in a wide-mouthed grin. “Thank you, kind sir.”

He’s so cute that you’re in physical pain about it.

Karkat helps him out of the dumpster and onto his feet, and you get to see how short this guy is. He’s hella short, shorter than five feet for sure. “I’m John Egbert,” he offers, and you’ve never heard of him, how? “You’re Karkat Vantas and Dave Strider, right? The kids who skip class to smoke cigarettes. You have quite a reputation! I’m glad this is the dumpster they threw me into today.”

“Today?” Karkat echoes, getting there before you, that asshole. “They throw you in dumpsters more than once a week?”

John Egbert nods. “Yeah. I’m usually stuck for a while because I’m too short to climb out by myself. The lunch lady usually helps me out.”

“That shit is over today,” you say, pointedly. “You’re with us.”

;;

You drive your point that John Egbert is with you and Karkat now by actually attending class. You’ve got a nasty hankering for a cig but it’s a bad habit that you should probably break anyway, and you can tell Karkat is in the same boat. Cronus and his gang spend every class glaring at the two of you, mainly because you’re both over six feet tall and could most certainly take him and his stupid fucking gang (made up of two sixth graders) in a fight. And at the end of the school day, John hugs you and Karkat and thanks you for all of your help, that this is the first time Cronus and his gang have left him alone in years.

As you watch him leave, Karkat groans, says, “We’re gonna quit smoking for this kid, aren’t we.”

You nod. “For sure.”

;;

“How long has it been since you smoked?” John asks one day at lunch, playing around with his chicken nuggets more than eating them. Yeah, you’ve upped the ante to sitting with him at lunch, which happened after you watched Cronus hurl a cup of jello onto his shirt and him run off to the bathroom crying. “I mean, you have to be craving cigarettes.”

You shrug with one shoulder, taking a sip of your Coke. Karkat, like the pretentious douche he is, has Diet Coke. As always, he’s one-upping you, like when he brings menthols instead of regular cigarettes. Like, they aren’t any better for you? They’re just fucking minty, which is disgusting and Karkat should be ashamed of himself. “Well, we got more important stuff to tend to. Besides, smoking is a shitty habit anyway. Not to mention Karkat smokes menthols, which are actually the scum of the earth.”

John laughs. Karkat throws a french fry at your head and tells you to fuck off. You eat the french fry right out of your lap and John laughs again, and you wish you could bottle up his laugh and turn it into cigarettes because it would be way more addictive, you’re sure. “Menthols are the best, don’t listen to this scumbag, John.”

“Cigarettes are bad for you,” John says. “They cause lung cancer! And anyway, most girls don’t think smoking is attractive. I think it’s disgusting.”

You have officially vowed off smoking. You are done. No more cigarettes, ever, for the rest of your life. If you keep smoking, how are you supposed to get gay-married to John Egbert and change his gross nerdy name to John Strider and buy a house in the suburbs and raise 3.5 children together? You can’t. Besides, John Egbert is way better than cigarettes.

;;

Tenth grade is the first time you ever get physical with Cronus Ampora and his band of misfits. Usually he’s too scared to even come near you, especially now that Karkat is buff as fuck from wrestling and you’re not exactly buff but pretty damn defined from strifing with your Bro. You’ve got a pretty rough right hook from fighting his abuse off over the years. He pretty much just leaves you alone now, abuses you in different ways, like making sure the kitchen fridge is always empty and the pantry, too.

Anyway, Cronus Ampora. After a while he got the hint that he should start leaving John alone and move on to different prey, but apparently, he hadn’t actually gotten the full memo. He shoves John into a locker as he’s walking out of gym class and knocks his books out of his hands, his posse the backup laughing for his own laughing. Kids pass like shit ain’t going down. You’re obviously going to change that.

“Hey, fuckface!” You call, cupping your hands over your mouth. Gym is the only class you don’t have with John, but you always sneak out of study hall early to get to his locker before he does. You love seeing the smile on his face when you’re already there, waiting for him. “I’m gonna punch you in the fucking face.”

Cronus snickers. “Yeah? You talk a big game, Strider, but does ya’ bite match up to ya’ bark? ‘Cause I doubt it.”

You show him that your bite matches your bark by punching him square in the face. The hallway is put on a pause then, short kids looking around tall ones to see what happened, what’s going on. And do you know what’s going on? Cronus Ampora is bleeding all over the pristine white tiled floor of the hallway. Cronus’ gang doesn’t even fight back, they just back away slowly and then turn and run full speed into the cafeteria. Probably going to get a teacher. Meh.

Your knuckles are swollen, but you ignore that in favor of holding your hand out for John, who’s sitting against the lockers, completely shell-shocked at what just happened. But he accepts your help nonetheless, and you dust him off and ask, “Did he hurt you?”

He shakes his head. “No, not really. I’m okay, I think. That was...really brave of you. Thanks, Dave.”

You wink even though he can’t see it and give him a patented Strider Smirk. “Anything for you.”

The silent hallway bursts into applause and wolf whistles. John’s hand is still in yours and he’s smiling with all of his teeth.

;;

The day you punch Cronus Ampora right in the face for him is apparently the day John realizes that you’ve been hella gay for him since you were thirteen, because while you’re icing your hand (by icing your hand, you mean sitting in your room with the literal entirety of your hand stuffed into a bucket of ice) he leans up to you and kisses you on the cheek, short and quick. “That was really cool,” he says. “What you did for me, back there. The thing where you punched Cronus Ampora in the face.”

“You missed,” is all your dumb-ass can reply.

Confused, he raises an eyebrow at you. “I missed what?”

“You missed,” you repeat, again, leaning in to kiss him. On the lips. Shit, get the police up in this bitch, Dave Strider is kissing a boy for the first time. A really fucking awesome boy, who reluctantly pulls away first, but leaves his forehead pressed to yours.

“You know, icing your hand in a bucket of ice probably isn’t the best idea.”

You snort a laugh. “For sure.”

;;

“I got accepted to Juilliard,” John announces to you, Karkat, and his sister Jade (his trademarked protection squad) three days before the last day of senior year. You know that you all look pretty shocked, but you have to look the most shocked of them all. You were just planning on staying here, in Texas, going to a community college for some boring career path so you can pay the bills until you decide what you really want to do with your life. “I know that’s kinda shocking since it’s a pretentious dick-bag school, but they accepted me. I sent a tape of me playing the piano.”

“Holy fuck,” Karkat says, and you give him props for being the first to speak. “What.”

You are going to graduate from high school in three days, and you have no fucking idea what direction your life is about to go in. Shit.

;;

You decide that it’s best if John goes off to New York to fancy-piano school (the exact way you put it) and you stay behind in Texas. You’re watching him drive away in his shitty Toyota with your arm wrapped around his sobbing sister when you decide that you can’t live without him for four years, and just like in the shitty romcoms he and Karkat love to watch together, you run after his car and catch up to him at a red light. He rolls his window down and shouts, “What the hell are you doing, Dave?”

“Listen dude,” you start off with. “I know this is totally a romcom now, but whatever. I actually love you? A shitton. And I can’t let you go to New York without me because without you I’m not really me anymore. You are actually the stem of my being. It is you. Please don’t go. I mean yeah, go to the fancy music school, but take me with you.”

He laughs, and you’re thrown back to seventh grade for a second, to the first time you ever heard him laugh, and you fall deeper in love with him in those few seconds between your speech and his reply. “Alright, fine. Get in, loser, we’re going to New York.”

Jade is smiling at you from her spot on the porch of her house, tears still in her eyes, but she winks and mouths, “Get ‘em, tiger.”

You wave to her and climb into John’s car. Traffic is backed up, but the lady in the car behind John’s is crying and clapping like she just saw the newest feel-good movie in theaters, the new hit that cashed the most in the box office and made back way more than their budget. You buckle up and John is smiling at you. “You made my life into a romcom.”

“I did.”

“Jackass.”

You nod. “Fair.”

He leans over the center console and kisses you. “I love you, you dickweed.”

You smile, but it’s not a Strider Smirk. It’s a real smile, the kind he always gives you. “I love you too, even though you called me a dickweed and a jackass.”

And life goes on as it should.

**Author's Note:**

> i need my angst back,


End file.
